Kwapis wins vote for teen pic

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Ken Kwapis has been elected to direct Walden Media's untitled teen mayor project being penned by Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse. Mike Medavoy and Arnold Messer of Phoenix Pictures are producing.

The project centers on a high school slacker, struggling to come up with something impressive to pad his college applications, who devises a plan to run for mayor of his town. When to his utter surprise he wins, he realizes that getting into college was the easy part.

Alex Schwartz, Jackie Levine and Jared Mass are overseeing for Walden Media, while David Thwaites shepherds for Phoenix Pictures.

Kwapis directed the upcoming comedy "License to Wed," starring Robin Williams, Mandy Moore and John Krasinski, to be released July 4 by Warner Bros. Pictures. Other feature film credits include "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and "He Said, She Said." Kwapis, who recently signed on to direct "He's Just Not That Into You" for New Line, also directed episodes of NBC's "The Office."

Kwapis is repped by UTA and Code Entertainment.

Addario and Syracuse worked on "Surf's Up" and are writing "Us & Them" with Billy Crystal for Nickelodeon/Paramount. The duo is repped by UTA and attorney Ken Richman.